{"id":13135,"date":"2016-07-09T08:59:52","date_gmt":"2016-07-09T14:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=13135"},"modified":"2016-07-09T08:59:52","modified_gmt":"2016-07-09T14:59:52","slug":"cpr-aed-instruction-saves-critical-minutes-which-saves-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/07\/cpr-aed-instruction-saves-critical-minutes-which-saves-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"CPR, AED instruction saves critical minutes, which saves lives"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"CPR<\/a>

Dan Burkhart<\/p>

Kristi Conroy\u00a0demonstrates to staff at Intermountain Equestrian Center how to position hands when administering CPR.<\/p><\/div>\n

In an age of acronyms there are a couple that really are lifesavers. CPR for one, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation. And AED for another, or automated external defibrillator. Together they save thousands of lives each year. They could save more if more people had them where they could be used and if more people knew when and how to use them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Kristi Conroy, with St. Vincent Healthcare, visited Horses Spirits Healing Inc. recently to instruct Intermountain Equestrian Center staff on CPR and AED use. Conroy is project director for\u00a0a federal grant awarded to St. Vincent Healthcare by the Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Rural Health Policy.<\/p>\n

Time is of the essence, of course. For each minute defibrillation is delayed, the chance of survival is reduced approximately 10 percent. The average response time for first responders once 911 is called is eight to 12 minutes, so an ordinary person with CPR and AED training serves a crucial bridge for a victim.<\/p>\n

\u201cSudden cardiac arrest kills 350,000 to 400,000\u00a0people each year,\u201d Conroy told IE staff who work with the equine therapy program for veterans. \u201cIt can hit anyone, anytime, anywhere. But many of those could survive if they\u00a0could\u00a0have CPR started immediately and\u00a0be\u00a0kept alive\u00a0until emergency personnel arrive.\u00a0We hope to increase the rate of survival from Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) by increasing rates of bystander CPR through direct involvement of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supplying Horses Spirits Healing Inc. with CPR training and an AED could mean saving the life or lives of clients and staff, if a cardiac arrest event occurs.<\/p>\n

Conroy brought a bag full of manikins (basically a head and chest simulator), clear and concise instructions, an AED and a sense of rhythm. The simulators let each person do hands-on cardiopulmonary resuscitation so they get as close-to-live feel of chest compression as possible.<\/p>\n

After explaining the basic theory of CPR\u2014when to administer it\u2014Conroy got down to the real work, demonstrating the proper position hands need to be on the chest\u2014one atop the other\u2014and explaining how often compressions need to be administered\u2014about 100 a minute. This is where she imparted the rhythm, clapping a beat to cue compressions. Think either of two songs: \u201cStayin\u2019 Alive\u201d or, ironically, \u201cAnother One Bites the Dust\u201d\u00a0(\u201cbut don\u2019t sing this one out loud,\u201d she joked).<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>The songs make it easier, but actually doing the compressions is hard work, which is why, if more than one person knows CPR, it\u2019s a good idea to switch\u00a0after about two minutes.\u00a0 The quality of the compression declines after two minutes because performing CPR is exhausting.<\/p>\n

CPR will not jumpstart the heart, but it will keep blood flowing to the\u00a0organs and most importantly, the\u00a0brain. The objective is to\u00a0keep the oxygenated blood circulating through the body to keep the organs alive and give the victim a higher chance of surviving a SCA.\u00a0\u00a0Administration of an electric shock to the\u00a0victim’s heart, termed defibrillation,\u00a0is usually needed in order to restore a viable or “perfusing” heart rhythm. That\u2019s where the AED comes in.<\/p>\n

Given the distance from Billings to Intermountain Equestrian Center, located on Montana 3 west of the Billings International Airport, the time someone could employ CPR or deploy the AED might be the advantage a victim needs until help arrives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have many Vietnam-era vets in our equine therapy program who might be susceptible to a heart attack, and we want to be able to render emergency assistance,\u201d Horses Spirits Healing Inc. President Paul Gatzemeier said. \u201cBut this could happen to people of any age, so it\u2019s useful for all our clients, whether students from Rocky Mountain College\u2014Intermountain Equestrian Center is home to the College equestrian program\u2014or private clients who board horses here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to St. Vincent Healthcare, which donates AEDs to many area organizations and the training it provides from staff like Conroy, clients of Horses Spirits Healing Inc. and Intermountain Equestrian Center may feel safer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe owe them a huge debt of gratitude for what they\u2019re doing in the community to make us safer,\u201d Gatzemeier said of St. Vincent Healthcare.<\/p>\n

\"Kristi<\/a>

Dan Burkhart<\/p>

Kristi Conroy keeps the rhythm for chest compressions by clapping to the beat of “Stayin\u2019 Alive” as Intermountain Equestrian Center staff simulate CPR on manikins.<\/p><\/div>\n

Nearly 200 AEDs have been placed in rural communities through St. Vincent Healthcare’s rural AED grant program.\u00a0 The program provides AEDs to rural and frontier areas, trains on their use and offers hands only CPR trainings as well as CPR certification.<\/p>\n

St. Vincent Healthcare is awarding AEDs and teaching hands-only-CPR in the hopes of empowering bystanders to step into action when a person is suffering sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). For every minute that chest compressions are delayed, that person’s chance of surviving decreases 10 percent to 15 percent.\u00a0When chest compressions are started quickly, the survivability rate increases.\u00a0 When an AED is deployed in addition to chest compressions, that survivability rate jumps even higher.\u00a0 For rural and frontier communities, having bystander intervention is crucial to a person suffering a SCA to survive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some areas of our state, EMS could be as much as 45 minutes away.\u00a0 That’s a very long time in a crisis situation where time is so precious. If we can get a community to learn hands only CPR, then there can be multiple people performing chest compressions while waiting for medical personnel to arrive,\u201d said Conroy.<\/p>\n

If someone is interested in learning hands only CPR, call Kristi Conroy at 238-6215 or email her at Kristi.conroy@sclhs.net<\/a>.\u00a0 The class is free, takes about 40 minutes and will empower you with the knowledge of knowing what to do in a critical situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an age of acronyms there are a couple that really are lifesavers. CPR for one, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation. And AED for another, or automated external defibrillator. Together they save thousands of lives each year. They could save more if more people had them where they could be used and if more people knew when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":13136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[4669,4668,3516,2488],"class_list":["post-13135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-aed","tag-cpr","tag-intermountain-equestrian-center","tag-st-vincent-healthcare","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}